


Blinding light

by apathyinreverie



Series: Tripping over tombstones [5]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-01
Updated: 2019-04-01
Packaged: 2019-12-30 05:08:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18308819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apathyinreverie/pseuds/apathyinreverie
Summary: Klaus is unbreakable.





	Blinding light

Klaus is unbreakable.

Not because he is particularly strong or resilient or anything of the sort. But Klaus has long-since learned how to bend, how to give in, how to be so _soft_ that there is no power in this world _capable_ of breaking him. Like water slipping through your fingers. Like mist, intangible, always just evading your grasp.

And he guards himself not behind walls but behind ghostly smoke and phantom mirrors. Hides himself in plain sight, by shoving everything he is right into everyone’s face so that no one can tell the important bits from those that don’t quite matter anymore.

Klaus is excellent at that, at being so colorful, so eccentric, so in-your-face that people always do their best to look _past_ him, always forgetting to look closer instead.

He is loud and bright and cheerful. So loud that you tune him out, forget to listen and thus don't hear anything he says, don’t hear him talk about the things that matter, so bright that you avert your eyes and thus don't see the chinks in his armor, so cheerful that you miss the grief in his eyes.

He is obvious and carefree and constantly moving. So obvious about his addictions that you forget to ask why he takes drugs in the first place, so carefree that you forget the very real sorrow that haunts his every step, so free that you forget to ask what it is that shackles him here.

Constantly moving, always flitting and twirling about, humming along to music no one can hear, tapping out a rhythm, dancing to a nonexistent tune. And as he twirls his way through life, everyone forgets to ask themselves just who it is he might be dancing with.

Because people rarely remember that it isn’t only _his_ ghosts that haunt him.

Klaus dances through life, one foot in the real world and one foot well into the realm of ghosts and spirits, already having been taken apart too far, having broken too often, having lost too many pieces of himself along the way for the jagged edges of the parts he managed to gather back together to fit well enough to make a whole anymore anyway.

And something that isn't whole also cannot be broken.

So, just like the ghosts that forever surround him, already having lost most everything of themselves but whatever remains now untouchable to the real world.

Just like them, Klaus is unbreakable.

**Author's Note:**

> So, this turned out oddly sad… This actually started out as something else entirely, but oh well XD And I decided to leave it vague at which point of the tua timeline this is written :D
> 
> Would love to know what you think (*^^*)


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